


status report

by uumiho



Category: Homestuck
Genre: F/M, Gen, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-27
Updated: 2013-04-27
Packaged: 2017-12-09 15:03:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,358
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/775567
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/uumiho/pseuds/uumiho
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>You’ve achieved your lifelong dream and yet your biggest accomplishment to this day is setting the corpses of a shipful of highbloods on fire.</i> </p><p>Because it's not like the assholes who dared kindap a friend of Neophyte Pyrope are going to get away with it.  This is what happens next.</p>
            </blockquote>





	status report

**Author's Note:**

> Gift fic for a friend. I am not really happy with it, but you can't win them all. :I

It’s way too early in the night--you can still smell light from your window--but you drag yourself out of your recuperacoon anyway.  You have a job to do, Neophyte Pyrope, get your shame globes up and moving.  You resist the urge to take advantage of the extra sleep time and you do just that, smearing sopor from your skin and flicking it back into the cocoon thoughtlessly.  

You slide on boxers, even if you don’t really think it’ll matter.

He sleeps on a pile in the opposite corner of your respiteblock.  After so long of not sleeping in a recuperacoon, being enveloped tends to make him panicky, so you’ve decided it’s best to do without.  The back of your knuckles slaps against his face lightly; you croon, “Hey, Mister Appleberry Blast.  This is Neophyte Pyrope; what is your status?”  He mumbles something unintelligible and doesn’t open his eyes.  That’s okay.  You slump down on the pile next to him, giving up the act.  Your fingers twist in his hair, thumb tracing up one of four curved horns.  There’s a small band on the outer left horn that’s meant to suppress his power; he’s just in no state to deal with controlling it right now.  “Sollux,” you whisper.  “It’s Terezi.”

And so, here you are.  In the middle of every twilight over the last perigee.  

“Wake up, weirdo.”

Four perigees since Sollux pissed off a highblood and was forcibly commandeered as a Helmsman.

“I know it’s early, but you owe me a status update.”

Two perigees since you found him.

“What’s my name, Sollux?  Where are you?”

One perigee since you killed every last filthy highblood on that gogforsaken vessel and brought him back to your hive.

“Tell me something about your current status.  Anything you can think of.”

One week since the last time he was lucid.

It’s okay.  He was never functional in early night, the lazy brat.  The memory makes your bloodpusher pang furiously in your chest.  He didn’t even know what to _do_ with a computer last time you put him in front of one.  The bees even stung him.

Sollux mumbles something again.  “What was that, Sol?  I didn’t understand you.”  It’s a hopeless game, most days.  If he’s going to speak, it usually doesn’t happen until midnight or later.  You still check on him every night at dusk, smack him awake and demand status updates so he has a sense of routine, and some day you hope he’ll hiss at you and swear about leaving him the fuck alone instead of merely babbling incoherently and rolling over so you can smell the bitter metallic scent of burn scars along his hips and shoulders where he was plugged into the ship.  Your fingertips ghost over the twisted scars, like tentaclebeast stings, that have seared their way across the expanse of his upper back.  He twitches fitfully, and you pull your hand away.  He doesn’t talk.  

You’re opening your mouth to prompt him again when two slightly off-beat bellows distract you.  “Come on, get up,” you say, shaking him firmly.  “Time to go say hello.”  You grab a jar of mind honey from a shelf as you drag Sollux away from his pile, ignoring his grumbles (grumbles are _good_ , way better than empty complacence) and leading him outside.  You don’t need to sniff down to know Bicyclops is scratching at the base of your tree and howling up for attention.  

After Sollux’s disappearance, you were the unlucky one out of his preciously small group of friends who ended up saddled with the care of his lusus.  Mostly because you had room for him, which did not mean you also had _time_ to care for an expensive and fussy and extremely large lusus in between working, but since taking your extended leave you’ve had more time to be bothered by the creature.

You still don’t have a lusus of your own.  You sort of don’t mind the attention.

Sollux is shoved into the lift and you jump hard next to him, counterbalancing the weighted bag of scalemates and sending the both of you plummeting to the ground with a delighted whoop from you.  Sollux just clings to the rope and blinks emptily.  Both of you are wearing nothing but underwear and your rumble spheres are blatantly on display, but it’s not like his lusus is going to care.

Or maybe he does.  He nudges Sollux and grunts at him the moment you two land down, one thick finger drawing over the exposed network of scars over his upper arms.  He sends you an accusing look with the blue eye, while keeping the red firmly trained on Sollux.

“ _Sorry_ ,” you huff.  “Maybe if you hadn’t been in so much of a hurry.”  You twist the top off the jar, pour some into the lid, and then pat it into Sollux’s hand.  “Go on,” you say, elbowing him closer.  You definitely absolutely do not have time to spend on cultivating the sort of apiculture network that Sollux does, so you just buy the honey from a dealer in the city, despite it being _damn fucking expensive_.  Someone else got the job of tending to his stupid computer system; you got the lusus.

Bicyclops waits patiently for Sollux to figure out what to do with the honey.  You wait with anxious nervousness roiling in your gut.

Finally Sollux lifts his hand, extending it toward his lusus and looking directly at him.  His eyes seem to focus, and you can smell the clarity settling over him.  It’s intensely relieving.

Carefully he lets the honey drip from the lid into his lusus’ palm and watches as the Bicyclops lifts his hand to one mouth and licks it.  You elbow Sollux’s shoulder and place the jar of honey in his hand.  He manages to pour some out by himself, into the waiting hand in front of him.  Bicyclops’ non-sticky hand lowers to pat his head, careful around the horns.

You smile.

He hasn’t spoken to you in a week, but this is okay.  This is progress.  You don’t need to bother them or ask to make sure they’ll be alright.  They’ve missed each other.  You hop on the lift and pull yourself up to go shower and get dressed, leaving them to the other’s company.

You’re dressed and showered when you peek back outside, and are treated to the scent of Sollux sitting cross-legged on the ground, grumbling at his lusus while the massive beast looms over him, smoothing his hair and patting big paws over the scars on his shoulders.  Obligingly, you throw a shirt and a pair of pants for him down to the ground, then duck back inside.

Leave of absence or not, your team still frequently bothers you for advice and information, and so you retreat to your computer to attempt to get some work done.  You quickly lose track of time, letting several hours pass.  You figure the moonlight will be good for them, and don’t let it bother you.

The moons are slowly dipping lower on the horizon when the door opens behind you.  “Ugh... TZ?”

You whirl so hard in your chair you almost fall out of it.   You didn’t even smell him walking up.  He’s looking at you, bicoloured eyes focused and clear.  You stand up.  “Sollux?”

“Don’t fucking fall out of your chair, jeez.  Thtupid.”  You missed that pathetic little lisp.  You really, genuinely did.

The space between you disappears as you storm over to him, only stopping when you reach out and realize a second later that you don’t know what to do with your hands.  “Soldier,” you say instead.  “Status update.”

“Ugh, reall--”

“What is your name?”

He glares at you, something that is made far less intimidating by his scrawny arms, protruding collarbones, and the way he sways just a little when he stands.  You’ve been trying really hard to get weight on him.  You have.  “Sollux Captor,” he answers tiredly.

“What is my name?”

“Unnethethary athhole.”

“Sollux, your lusus is outside.  There is no one else in this planet who can or would stop me from slapping you upside your thinkpan.”  He snickers, and it ends with a nasal little snort that makes your bloodpusher turn itself inside out and the desire to wrap your arms around him flare up uncomfortably strong.

Oh Gog, you pity him so much.  

You tug reprimandingly on one of his horns.  “Neophyte Pyrope, Terezi,” he says.  He only lisps a little on the Z sound; it sounds like a hum, or a buzz.

He sways again.  You step forward, pressing five cool digits against the warmth of his upper arm.  You can faintly smell the tiny threads of light grey scars that run up the length of his arms, disappearing under the sleeve of his shirt.  “Where are you, Sollux?”

“Your weird foretht hive, TZ-- why is my luthuth outthide?  I don’t--”

“One question at a time,” you chide, a little too gently.  You lick the points of your teeth, give his arm an involuntary little rub.  He doesn’t notice.  “You’re at my hive.  How did you get here?”

His forehead wrinkles, and you can hear the buzzing in his thinkpan, examining him as he tries to remember.  It’s okay if he doesn’t.  He remembered your _name_ today.  “You were forcibly conscripted into service under Admiral Pujaar.  You served for two perigees as his Helmsman before I showed up and reappropriated you.”  And slaughtered and burned an entire ship of highbloods.  Don’t forget that part, Terezi.  You killed them all and burned the evidence so you wouldn’t have to justify it to the court.  Who but you would care about the fate of one non-consenting lowblood?  You’d be culled for insubordination.  “Do you remember how long you’ve been here?  Sollux?”

Your hand sinks into his hair.  You shouldn’t, not with him in a state like this.  You almost can’t help it.  You sniff lightly at the glaze over his eyes and slap his cheek lightly with your other hand.  “Captor, eyes on me,” you murmur, pushing yourself up to your toes so you’re as close to his height as possible.  It helps that he slumps.  “You’ve been here for a perigee--”

As if you’re not talking, Sollux lifts a hand to his head and mumbles, “It’th tho thmall in here, TZ.  I’m thuppothed to be thomewhere elthe.  I’m thuppothed to be thomewhere bigger.”

You’ve dragged him into the other room and are curled around his body in his pile before you have an opportunity to feel ashamed at yourself.  “Shoosh,” you croon at him, manhandling his head into the crook of your arm.  You have a leg thrown over his torso, an inch away from his hip, and your right arm is stroking over his upper back, where you can feel the worst of the scars through the fabric of his shirt.  “You aren’t supposed to be anywhere but right here,” you say; you hush him when he protests.

“My head feelth too thmall,” he complains.

“You’ll get used to it,” you whisper, fluttering a kiss over his cranial dome, even though you _shouldn’t_.  “It’s a common symptom.  Don’t feel bad, everything you’re experiencing is normal.”  You would know.  You read, and read, and read, and then asked questions and read some more.  You don’t feel like it’s possible to be too prepared for dealing with this situation, and yet you still feel like everything is completely beyond your ability to help.  You are an esteemed legislacerator; that isn’t a feeling you’re all too happy with in any circumstance.

He doesn’t respond, and you don’t press him.  You keep him curled up in your body, and you purr and trill against his forehead, stroking him everywhere your hand will reach.  You don’t keep track of the time that passes.  You don’t think of much, really.

The sun rises.  You don’t have it in you to get up and close the blinds, so instead you grab a blanket from the make-up of the pile and yank it over your heads.  You feel like the both of you are six again, hiding under blankets at mid-day, playing game-grubs and throwing grubcorn at one another while swearing and insulting each other, sometimes elbowing each other for space, sometimes pressing into one another’s sides, sometimes ignoring the game grubs entirely and making out messily until twilight hits and he pulls his hand out of your pants and you put your shirt back on and you sleep the night away, curled up on a shitty couch or a hastily made pile.

You’re thirteen now, and nothing has gotten that much better and most things have gotten a little bit worse.  You’ve achieved your lifelong dream and yet your biggest accomplishment to this day is setting the corpses of a shipful of highbloods on fire.

“Mrng... TZ?”  Oh well.

“Yeah, Sollux?”  It’s not a bad accomplishment, really.

“Where are we?”  Their screams were pretty cool.

“In your pile.  In my block.”  And what you got from it is far more precious than a legislacerator’s badge.

“Th’ fuck do I have a pile in your block?”

You sigh, and kiss his forehead.  He curls into your chest, accepting this as a sufficient answer.  “You should sleep,” you say.  “Your lusus would kill me if he finds out I’m not keeping poor Mister Appleberry on a regular schedule.”  You snicker, and you think Sollux got the joke because he smacks your arm.  

“Are you gunna leave?”

Your recuperacoon is across the room and the blinds still aren’t closed.  Sunlight streams freely through the window.  “No,” you say.  “I’m comfortable here.”  Your fingers card through his hair, tracing carefully around the band around his horn.  Maybe if he keeps up his progress you’ll try taking it off and seeing how he does.

“Oh.  Okay.”

A massive yawn overtakes your jaw, but you can't go to sleep quite yet. “Sollux Captor, status report.”

There's a moment of silence, and then: “Fuck you, TZ, I don't want to do your thtupid thatus report, I want to go to thleep.”

… It's good enough.


End file.
